The Lesson for Employers or Would-Be Employers Should Be Pretty Clear

The
two Senators have announced that they are preparing legislation prohibiting the
practice as violation of privacy, which job applicants have little if any way
to fight against.
This
is especially important during the job-seeking process, when all the power is
on one side of the fence, Blumenthal said in his prepared statement.
Blumenthal said that hes confident that the practice will be found to violate
federal law. The senators noted that Facebook itself announced that such a
practice would violate its privacy policies, and that the company intended to
take legal action against any employer that violated it or forced Facebook
users to reveal their log-in credentials.

The
lesson to employers or would-be employers is quite clear: If youre asking
potential employees for their social network log-in info, then youre almost
certainly breaking the law.

Employers
are allowed to see what your employees or applicants say in public, and you can
do that by viewing the information they post in public. But if you go beyond
whats public and base a hiring or employment decision on protected
information, youre setting yourself up for serious legal problems. You could
even find that youre committing a crime, an activity that would be certain to
annoy your legal department.
If
your human resources department is doing this, it might be a good idea to
suggest that they take refresher training in EEOC nondiscrimination practices.
You might also have them refer to the cases mentioned above for details on how
they might be impacted by civil liability claims.
If
youre a job applicant, the story is a little different. If youre applying for
a job, and your prospective employer demands your social network log-in info,
then you have a decision to make. Do you really want to work for a company that
could be potentially violating federal law? If you really need this job, then ask the employer to make the request for credentials in writing.
If you dont get the job, file a complaint with the EEOC, and use the written
request as evidence.

Of
course, you have to understand that there are a few jobs out there where the
employer will still get to look at your private Facebook information. So if
youre applying for a highly sensitive job at an intelligence agency, youd
better hope that your Facebook pages dont contain anything incriminating.
But
in reality, you should make sure that your Facebook pages dont contain
anything thats potentially harmful to your employment or your peace of mind.
Even if your employer doesnt haveand cant getaccess, that doesnt mean your
friends cant. And while I cant tell you whether to trust your friends, just
ask yourself if theres anything in your Facebook profile that would be a
problem if one of the people you trust decided to release it. If so, it
shouldnt be there.

Wayne Rash is a Senior Analyst for eWEEK Labs and runs the magazine's Washington Bureau. Prior to joining eWEEK as a Senior Writer on wireless technology, he was a Senior Contributing Editor and previously a Senior Analyst in the InfoWorld Test Center. He was also a reviewer for Federal Computer Week and Information Security Magazine. Previously, he ran the reviews and events departments at CMP's InternetWeek.

He is a retired naval officer, a former principal at American Management Systems and a long-time columnist for Byte Magazine. He is a regular contributor to Plane & Pilot Magazine and The Washington Post.